Remote Learning Impacts on Student Wellbeing

Abstract

This study tracks wellbeing of a large cohort of first-year engineering students at a large Canadian university over a remotely-delivered academic year. This continues a similar tracking study completed with inperson instruction the previous year. Data were collected through short, weekly surveys rotating through the student cohort. Overall, the results show relatively consistent stressors across the year, driven primarily by academics, and very similar to data from the previous year delivered in person. Wellbeing scores (measured through the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale) declined slightly through the year, and were overall lower than the previous academic year delivered in-person. Considering factors of EDI, female students showed slightly lower wellbeing scores than male students, while international students showed slightly higher scores than Canadian students.

Effects of the Digital Intervention StudentPOWR on the Subjective Wellbeing of Students Studying from Home: a Randomized Wait-List Control Trial

“…With research suggesting that the change to remote learning is having a measurable negative impact on student well-being (e.g., Ostafichuk et al, 2021), digital interventions appear as a compelling strategy to improve student well-being and have been developed and evaluated in randomized controlled trials, with many showing positive results (Lattie et al, 2019).…”